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Guide to reconstucting clothing

[ Posted by krista Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:29:28 GMT ]

Finally i made somewhat of a guide. Tell me what you think!

Reconstructed clothing guide.

Why reconstruct clothes?
-to recycle
-to save money
-to lessen the amount of storage
-to clean your closet
-to make items personal and one of a kind
-to save your favorite clothing from the trash

How do you start?

In my opinion you should start small to get the hang of it. Take a piece of clothing and add something to it. A design, some trim, some kind of flair.
Or You can do something else small like take something away, take out a hem for a rough edge, take off the lace trim, take off the design.

A slightly more advanced thing to do is modifying structure. Subtract length, to sleeves, pant legs, the bottom of a shirt Subtract the size of the shirt by taking in seams. You can do other things like change the collar type of a shirt, add a collar, add a layered collar. Maybe add some sleeves, modify the type of sleeve, add fabric to the sleeves.

Then even more advanced is for more experienced sewers. You can use a pattern to make modifications, completely rework items like making one item into another.. Example, make pants into shirt, make shirt into skirt, make skirt into purse. You can even do something like cut open all seams and hems and think of the item as just plain fabric use a pattern or just freehand it.

What I do is think of something I might want or need and raid my storage for supplies to make that item. Or when i get bored I look for something in storage that I  like and see what i could make out of it.

If you get stuck just do some simple moves.. fold it, look at it, imagine it as something else, take out a seam and then look at it again, take off trim, sleeves anything else and look again .. it will come to you !

And most important!
SAVE ALL YOUR SCRAPS! things that come in handy..
trim, elastic, strips and pieces of fabric, decorative items, snaps, buttons, lace, patterns and everything else! These all could become something. even if you cannot work it as an item itself it could be an add on to another item.

I hope this might help someone make the effort to get a little creative and crafty :)
And if someone has any additions to this guide then please help me by sending suggestions. 

Posted in Homemaking, Tutorials, Art, General News, Craft, Sewing, Fashion/Clothing, On the Cheap | Tags Clothing, craft, craftin, Guide, Recon, reconstruct, sew, sewing | 5 comments

Reconstructed clothing : Vest from pants

[ Posted by krista Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:17:24 GMT ]

Trying once again to dress my younger one.

So many resources for fabric in our storage. I found lots of sleep pants, almost too many for my son to wear one a day for a month!

So now to make something else that he might need. I know he needs a little bit better looking clothing than the p.j.'s and cutsie baby stuff. I thought i need to start manking him something that is a little more grown up and kid looking., not baby.

I thought to myself that a vest could be the best thing because he has a lot of shirts that have that food stain that i cannon get rid of and a vest can cover that very well and extend the life of those shirts.

Now i start the easy vest from fleece sleep pants

Posted in Kids, Homemaking, Tutorials, Craft, Sewing, Fashion/Clothing, On the Cheap | Tags Clothing, Kids, Pants, Recon, reconstructed, tutorial, vest | 1 comment

Reconstruct clothing: Extending kids clothes

[ Posted by krista Tue, 09 Oct 2007 20:24:56 GMT ]

Now that the weather is changing my two boys need to get a winter wardrobe. Right now there are a whole bunch of hand-me-downs sitting for my little one but his size is only fitting for my oldest's old summer clothes. Now I have been going through all the clothes trying to make some of those summer clothes a little warmer to wear.

Posted in Kids, Homemaking, Tutorials, Craft, Sewing, Fashion/Clothing, On the Cheap | Tags Clothing, Kids, Pants, polo, reconstructing, revamping, shirt | 3 comments

Reconstructed clothing: P.J. makeover

[ Posted by krista Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:15:59 GMT ]

I did promise to have the tutorial up yesterday but the fates were against me again. But through a lot of work i got it all ready for everyone.

But please do not laugh at the crappy drawings and the lack of terminology. :)

But here is the tutorial to remake frumpy p.j.'s

Posted in Homemaking, Tutorials, Craft, Sewing, Fashion/Clothing, On the Cheap | Tags Clothing, p.j., Recon, reconstruct, reconstruction, s, sewing, tutorial | no comments

Reconstructed Clothes : Maternity Overalls into Apron

[ Posted by krista Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:07:57 GMT ]

Going through the maternity stuff again and finding the things i would never wear again i came across the ugly overalls i had when i was pregnant. Well they were cute actually on a pregnant woman but not on me because i was HUGE!!! But now being smaller and have a slightly more flattering waist i thought these would make a cute apron.

Posted in Homemaking, Craft, Sewing, Fashion/Clothing, On the Cheap | Tags apron, cheap, Clothing, reconstructed, recycle, sewing | 1 comment

Reconstructed Clothing : Salvation of the Nursing Bra

[ Posted by krista Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:12:22 GMT ]

I Had my second Child Recently and was left with the maternity clothes and the post partum Fat clothes in my basement. I have been slowly going through them to see what i can do and i made my wat to the one thing i have so many of yet so little of. Let me clarify, I have many nursing bras that are almost like new and not many standard bras that are in the same decent condition. I decided to revamp the nursing bras.

Posted in Homemaking, Craft, Sewing, Fashion/Clothing, On the Cheap | Tags bra, clothes, Clothing, Recon, reconstructed, recycle, sewing | no comments

Urban Renewal.

[ Posted by krista Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:01:46 GMT ]

I have been blogging about revamping your clothes and using what you have on hand and save money instead of buying a whole new wardrobe.

This girl has taken the simple t-shirt revamp to a whole new level.

This is a must see for freestyle t shirt reconstructing with flair!

Posted in Sewing, Fashion/Clothing, On the Cheap | Tags cheap, Clothing, reconstructed, recycle, revamp, Tshirt | 1 comment

Wholesome, finally!

[ Posted by krista Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:38:11 GMT ]

I have been recently looking at the old navy styles that are on their website fgor the fall. I am impressed! There seems to be some pretty decent things out now that do not show a lot of indecent things. We have all lived through the Paris hilton miniskirts, the clevage showing tops, and the belly showing mini t's and I was sick of it. As much as we would like to preach to our children "it does not matter what you look like on the outside, it is the inside that counts" But what you wear makes you what is you. If you want to be unique, be prepared to qbe treated different, if you want to dress sexy, be prepared to be treated like an object.  In real life you cannot go into an interview wearing a miniskirt or have your hair dyed purple and be taken seriously. If you dress that way, expect to be treated differently than the person who wears the buisness suit and tie.

We need to tell our oversexed teens too to tone it down. The girls were showing way too much skin. what is a guy going to want from you on a first date? You have already shown him everything you have.  Lets get back to basics, get back to certain expectations. I believe when you walk into a room, your clothing says a lot about you and also says to other people in a non verbal way if oyu respect them or not. This is why we wear sunday best to church, this is why we cover our feet at the white house. People have just lost their way and the distorted idiots in the fashion industry who thrive on shock value and pretentious art have lowered our society standard on dress.. all for money.

But when i see a refreshing sight like the old navy trapeze and the jumper dresses, it makes me think there is hope for these girls to cover up. Providing there is a sweater to go over the shoulders on the trapeze dresses and there is undershorts and tights for the jumper. :)

Trapeze dress from old navy

Posted in Rants, Fashion/Clothing | Tags Clothing, dress, Oldnavy | no comments

Reconstructed clothes

[ Posted by krista Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:57:22 GMT ]

My first try!

I just got done turning my husband's plaid dress shirt into a cute casual shirt for me.

I do not have a step by step tutorial with photos because I had no time. i was trying to do the shirt as a trial before the boys woke up.

Here is what i did to it.

I first cut the sleeves off

turned it inside out and fitted it for a new seam against my torso. Pinned where i wanted to tailor the seam, sewed it up along the line and then cut off the excess.

Then i took the sleeves and cut them shorter, turned them so the cuff opening was in the front and then switched arms so i could use the excess part of the sleeve as a slight pucker. I took in the shoulders then attached the sleeves. and then i was done!

Here is the finished product. For my first time it is not so bad!

Posted in Fashion/Clothing, On the Cheap | Tags Clothing, reconstructed, sew, shirt | 1 comment

This will make you feel a little better

[ Posted by krista Mon, 20 Aug 2007 17:27:41 GMT ]

It makes me feel a little better about myself when you see that a LOT of what you see in the magazines and so on are just heavily edited picture. Not many people have such perfect ski and perfect bodies. There will always be something that needs improving.

Check this out.

Yadogg.com

Posted in Fashion/Clothing | Tags celebrity, Clothing, Fashion, magazine, stars | no comments